A «terroir» is a group of vineyards from the same region, belonging to a specific appellation, and sharing the same type of soil, weather conditions, grapes and wine making savoir-faire, which contribute its specific personality to the wine. White wine variety «Rebula» or «Ribolla gialla» is a local and traditional variety, which is mentioned already in XIII. century like variety for tax paying and merchandise.

In the context of climate change and for the sustainable exploitation of Mediterranean vineyards, it is necessary to use new strategies to adapt to the new climatic conditions.

Winemaking areas recognized as protected designations of origin (PDOs) shape important economic, environmental and cultural values that are tied to closely defined geographic locations. To preserve wine products and wine-growing practices adopted in different PDOs these areas are strictly regulated by legal specifications. However, quality viticulture is increasingly under pressure from climate change, which is altering the local conditions of many winegrowing areas. Therefore, maintaining traditional wine products will require the adoption of tailored adaptation strategies, including possible changes in the legal regulation of protected wines. To this end, it is necessary to have a comprehensive knowledge on PDOs including their extension, products and allowed practices. While there have been efforts to build databases that summarize the characteristics for individual wine PDO areas and to quantify the related effects of climate change, much information is still included only in the official documentation of the EU geographical indication register and has never been collected in a comprehensive manner. With this study we aim at filling this gap by building a spatial inventory of European wine PDOs that supports decision making in viticulture in the context of climate change. To map and characterize European wine PDOs, we analysed their legal documents and extracted relevant information useful for climate change adaptation. The output consists of a comprehensive geographical dataset that identifies the boundaries of all 1200 European wine PDOs at unprecedented spatial resolution and includes a set of legally binding regulations, such as authorized vine varieties, maximum yields and planting density. The inventory will allow researchers to analyse the impacts of climate change on European wine PDOs and support decision makers in developing tailored adaptation strategies. This includes, among others, the evaluation of new vineyard site selection, the expansion of cultivated varieties or the authorization of irrigation in vineyards.

Aim: The aim of this report is to present evidence on the potential of Greek and Cypriot grape varieties to serve as a sustainable solution to mitigate climate change.

Methods and Results: The work provides a review of recent works involving Greek and Cypriot varieties’ performance under high temperatures and increased dryness.

The French “Coteaux du Layon” Appellation of Origin has built its Jarne on the production of sweet white wines. A network of experimental plots, based on the “terroir” concept, was established in 1990; it allows for the follow-up of the overripening behaviour of the grapes in relation with the agroviticultural parameters.